Where canvases assert: Ambedkarite artists engage with Namdeo Dhasal’s Golpitha in new show

"We constitute 80 percent of India's population which adds up to at least 800 million people who don't find their faces amongst those in curatorial focus at exhibitions and biennales. Our aesthetic is versatile from our traditional vocations as village bards, dancers, cobblers, weavers and blacksmith. I bring with me those elements to a community with whom I wish to talk. Our stories need to be heard," says Prabhakar Kamble, curator of ‘Golpitha: A Namdeo Dhasal Memoriam' currently showing at the Art & Soul gallery in Worli.

Enthralling as it is, the empty room feels heavy with conversations, celebratory shouts and agitating sounds from the people drawn on charcoal grey canvases and framed acrylic paintings that cover the walls as well as portrayed in ceramic installations positioned on the floor. Whether it was the woman with a Dholak partaking in community rituals or the man sitting on a commode, engaged in deep thought with a cigarette in his hand - the depictions are familiar scenes from the city that are many a times overlooked and dismissed as unimportant.

Beyond conventional aesthetics, the human figures strongly communicate their presence, shifting the visitors' attention to the people and the social setting of Kamathipura, a neighbourhood of Mumbai, often neglected or subjected to a vilifying gaze by fellow city residents.

The headless figures in the painting, as explained by Kamble, is the artist's way of looking at people who visited Kamathipura in search of bodies, not minds. Painting by Prakash Bhise. Image courtesy: Art & Soul gallery

Golpitha, a sub-location in Kamathipura, becomes "the constituency of poetry for the Dalit Panther Namdeo Dhasal," writes Kamble. He is a Mumbai-based artist, whose works and curations respond to the immediate social realities and collective histories with an "Ambedkarite consciousness emerging from Dalit consciousness". His exhibition showcases the solo works of artists Prakash Bhise in paintings and Upendra Ram in ceramics.

Bhise, a retired professor of painting from LS Raheja College of Arts, is a life-long member of the Ambedkarite movement. As a personal friend of Dhasal, he closely watched the genius of the poet and made frequent visits to Kamathipura. He illustrates the everyday lives of people in the red light district through his black and grey drawings. Ram is a young ceramicist from Siwan, Bihar and is based in Nagpur. According to Kamble's notes, Ram's sophisticated drawings on ceramic - a material considered to be elite - is an act of dissent against caste untouchability practised by the upper caste villagers, who prohibit reusing cups made of terracotta, a material used to make the village deities in the artist's locality.

Reflections of inequalities and unrest

Though the curation majorly draws inspiration from ‘Golpitha', a collection of poems by Namdeo Dhasal, they trace the poet's influential way of writing against caste injustices and inequalities by positioning realities of the human condition and identity aesthetics at the centre of his poetry. Focusing on the subjects of Dhasal's poems, the paintings majorly depict the women and transgender community of Kamathipura. The detailing and elements in the artworks speak volumes about the ways in which the art and an artist's call for resistance to injustices intertwine.

Ceramics by Upendra Ram at the exhibition. While some are topped by human heads, others are etched "by swaying human torsos conversing with the intent of Dhasal's poetry that dealt with the human condition (reference: image no. 2). Image courstesy: Art & Soul

Women engaged in routine work, participating in leisure activities, feeding their babies, performing rituals of birth and death and organising themselves in front of Dr Ambekdar's statue are just some of the visuals that leave an impact on the viewer's mind. They carry on with their lives under the shadow of a black circle representing a "black sun", which is unmissable in most of the drawings. Kamble explains, "The black sun represents the darkness in the lives of the communities marginalised by oppressive systems. It shows the there's no light of hope or justice in their life. Similarly, the drawings are colourless, because there is no colour in the lives of the people portrayed."

In addition to this, Bhise also captures the reverse migration that followed the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. The paintings of queues of people with luggage show the hardships of lakhs of migrants who left the city in buses, trains, by road and on foot with their little kids when they felt abandoned by city dwellers and the authorities. With illustrations of female workers sweeping the grounds, Bhise talks about the contribution of sanitation workers during the pandemic, who continued risking their lives to keep fellow residents safe.

On the other side, Ram, through his ceramic illustrations narrates his memories from the time he spent in his village. In doing so, he establishes a correlation between his village traditions and practices that were central to the community with the subjects and aesthetics of Dhasal's poems. Depicting images of village boys, women and deities, the ceramic structures, as Kamble notes, "relate to the mounds used as totems to village gods that Ram's family was expected to fashion out of clay and colour for the village's privileged castes."

Role of art and literature in the anti-caste movement

The ‘Thinker'. Ceramic by Upendra Ram. Image courtesy: Sarasvati T

At a time when caste discrimination sweeps news headlines every other day and yet many remain shrouded by ignorance of the evils of caste, one cannot help but think about the significance of Dhasal's works in contemporary times. Describing his writings as ‘timeless creations', Kamble says amid rising caste-based atrocities, communal violence and the ensuing degradation of humanity, Dhasal's writings act as a dissent to those who live in denial of caste realities.

"After reading Golpitha and seeing the exhibition question us, ‘Does it still exist?', then we are reassured that, yes, Namdeo is still relevant. His writings are a light that pierces the darkness. And as long as there is a darkness of inequality, Namdeo's writings will be relevant," adds Kamble.

A rise in Dalit assertion through various art forms, especially in the digital space, is a manifestation of the anti-caste movement, which has evolved over decades. Art and literature have been instrumental in driving the force through successive generations.

According to Kamble, the use of art as a non-violent weapon within the constitutional framework to fight for a social cause and for representation of communities marginalised by those who wield the social capital, is paramount to this struggle.

Exhibition date: 11 November - 7 December

Time: 10 am to 7 pm

Venue: Art & Soul gallery, Worli

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